Voting Station

Zebulon Simentov

Please vote to return to collections.

Religious Figure

The Resume

    (1959- )
    Born in Herat, Afghanistan
    Name also transliterated from Hebrew as Zablon Simintov
    Carpet dealer and restauranteur
    Was famed as the 'last Jew in Afghanistan
    Left for Israel (September 7, 2021) a month after the Taliban regained control of the country

Why he might be annoying:

    He and Ishaq Levin, for years the only other Jew in Afghanistan, lived together in Kabul's only synagogue, but did not get along at all.
    He and Levin denounced each other to the authorities as agents for Mossad (Israeli intelligence).
    In addition, Levin accused him of stealing relics from the synagogue and he accused Levin of running a secret brothel that served illegal alcohol.
    After he and Levin were both imprisoned, their arguments in jail were so disruptive that the authorities released them.
    Their feud was so intense that the authorities suspected him of murdering Levin until an autopsy proved Levin had died from diabetes (2005).
    He said about Barack Obama, 'He has no right to be President. He is a black man, he should be cleaning the streets of America.'
    There was speculation that his reluctance to leave Afghanistan was due to his refusal to grant his estranged wife a get (Jewish religious divorce), which can result in a prison sentence in Israel.
    It turned out that he was not actually the last Jew in Afghanistan: Tova Moradi, an 83-year-old distant cousin of Simentov who had married a Muslim man but had not herself converted, fled the country a month after he had (October, 2021).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He had to move into the Kabul synagogue after his house was badly damaged in street fighting.
    He was arrested and abused several times by the Taliban.
    During Passover, he regularly received shipments of kosher supplies from Afghani Jews living in the US.
    He said he stayed in Afghanistan to keep alive a connection to the country's Jewish history: 'I don't want my Jewish heritage erased.'
    He said he finally left the country out of worries that groups even more radical than the Taliban (such as the Afghani branch of ISIL) might gain power.
    He did grant his wife a get upon arriving in Israel.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 13 Votes: 23.08% Annoying